Business Ethics and Organizational Culture Free Essay Example, 1250 words

usiness Ethics and Organizational Culture of Enron Business Ethics and Organizational Culture of Enron Business is needed by people to earn money as money is involved in the selling of goods and services. Selling is not the only aspect of business because many processes are needed to conduct a business. Entrepreneurs and customers are not the only people involved in business as huge businesses like malls and corporations require employees to run the whole businesses. In having employees working for a company, ethics and culture mold them to work together towards the organizational goals. Ethics and culture are parts of the corporate world, but both of them are also found outside of the business and corporate context. It would help to define both concepts as they will both guide the discussion later on about a controversial company and how both ethics and culture were bended and changed. The first concept is that ethics which is part of philosophy that serves as guide on how to liv e in terms of the concept of goodness or between right and wrong (Pojman and Fieser, 2012, p. We will write a custom essay sample on Business Ethics and Organizational Culture or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now 2). The action is being judged as the motive affects the action and the outcome is checked as to whether it is good or bad. As people spend time to learn and explore the world, they seek the truth which gave birth to philosophy and pursues the integrity of the actions as Socrates said, â€Å"the unexamined life is not worth living, † (Pojman and Fieser, 2012, p. 2). The focus of ethics is the reflection and study of actions and motives as seen in the famous quotation of Socrates. With that pursuit, ethics is correlated with morality or moral philosophy as they deal with the right and wrong conduct, but ethics is larger than morality as the latter is just a portion of the former (Keim, 2000, p. 180). Since ethics affects decision and choice as guided by whether an action is good or bad, it can shape the culture of people. Culture allows men to survive as deals with the physical and sociological realms of life as people of the same group have the same behavior (Ayisi, 1992, p. 2). In short, culture is a way of life as people respond for learning and survival in their everyday lives. According to Hofstede, another definition of culture is â€Å"the collective programming of the human mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from those of another, † (Wagner, 2009, p. 2). Culture is said to be a mindset of a group of people as they adapt to their environment and as they interact with one another.

Does Caffeine Have An Affect On The Heart Rate Of A Dafnia...

Does CAFFEINE have an affect on the Heart Rate of a DAFNIA (water flea)? Introduction The objective of this investigation was to observe the affect of caffeine on the heart rate of a Daphnia (water flea), by observing the specimen under a microscope for a set period of time while in an environment of concentrated caffeine. By using a microscope, the collection of data regarding the heart rate of the how to make a line graph in word Daphnia was possible. Drinks such as coffee, Red bull, MONSTER and Coca-Cola contain high amounts of caffeine, causing the consumer to increase their amounts of stimulatory neurotransmitters (this is a chemical in the brain sent throughout the body telling your heart to beat, your lungs to breathe, and your stomach to digest). As caffeine is a stimulant, it is predicted that the drug will increase the Heart Rate of the Daphnia. Caffeine will be used in this experiment with concentrates of black coffee. Due to the miniature size of a Daphnia, biologists have had unique troubles with analysing the way the systems of the Daphnia function. Biologists have argued, that the circulatory system of a Daphnia relies on diffusion or convection. However, it has been decided that depending on the oxygen levels in the environment will affect the way that the circulatory system of the Daphnia functions. The levels of haemoglobin will also affect the functioning of the circulatory system in the water flea. Haemoglobin is a red blood cell, assisting the

Pfizer Company A Presentation of Strategic Context Free Essays

Pfizer is the number two largest biomedical and pharmaceutical research and development company in the world, boasting in excess of fifty Billion dollars per year in gross revenues. While the recession has hit many companies, the biotechnology and pharmaceuticals sector has remained not only relatively insulated, but in addition to that the forecasting models for growth predict a profitable future. Pfizer has had its share of growing pains, a cause for reduction in gross revenues comes primarily from a growth strategy to acquire another large biopharmaceutical company, yet net retained earnings have continued to increase at a rate of six percent annual average each year over the last three years. We will write a custom essay sample on Pfizer Company: A Presentation of Strategic Context or any similar topic only for you Order Now After Pfizer’s acquisitions of Wyeth they saw a substantial increase in operating profit margins due to increased efficiencies between the two companies. Pfizer has recently acquired a biopharmaceutical company named Wyeth. By purchasing Wyeth which specializes in vaccines, Pfizer has broadened their customer base by expanding their product line. This business practice aligns with Pfizer’s current pro-growth Strategy. It is clear, in most part; Pfizer’s business Strategy aligns with the wild wild west model of Industry Ecosystems. Pfizer if a relatively fast growing company, in an industry that thrives on making fast and furious technological discoveries, and they have a very high rate of customer retention due to patent protection. Pfizer has many competing technologies in the market place for such diseases as cardiac health, mental health, and infectious disease treatments. Their drug Lipitor is by far the highest grossing drug the company currently has on the market. Cardiac disease is the most common and fatal disease that Americans face. Lipitor functions by lowering low density lipids (or fats) in the blood stream thus promoting cardiac and circulatory efficiency and health. Pfizer’s patent on Lipitor is set to expire in November of this year which would potentially result in reducing their total revenues for that drug significantly because other companies could then introduce a generic substitute. The net effect of Lipitor’s patent expiration on Pfizer’s bottom line could be a reduction as large as ten percent of total gross revenues. Pfizer would be expected to retain approximately twenty percent of users which equals four percent of Pfizer’s total Gross Revenues. Some customers ill continue to use Lipitor, for example: those patients whose insurance does cover name brand medicines or patience of physicians that reject writing prescriptions for generic substitutes. This problem is a perfect example of one of Porters Key strategy principals that Pfizer follows, analyzing and protecting a threat of substitute products. How Pfizer addresses the problem is how they exercise his strategy. The current estimated retail cost of Lipitor is around one hundred and seventy dollars per month depending on the prescribed dosage. After November of this year it is very possible that we could see a generic substitute on the Wal-Mart four dollar list. Part of Pfizer’s Business strategy has been to launch legal battles for patent protections and extensions longer than the November 2011 date, which would result in a prolonged period of increased earnings and profits. To continue with an analysis of strategy, Pfizer uses both a combination of the resource based view in conjunction with the industry investment prospective. An example of this would be Pfizer’s acquisition of Wyeth which catered to a much broader and diverse section of the drug market. The resource prospective would say that Pfizer already has massive research and development capabilities, drug production and manufacturing systems, and well established distribution channels for its already long list of products, making Wyeth a fit for the company’s growth and expansion strategies. What is different from the resource based view and supports the industry investment strategy is that Wyeth is a leading researcher, developer, and provider of vaccines, which is a very lucrative industry in and of its self. The numbers of users for vaccines are much larger than for a specialized product such as Lipitor, yet vaccines still have patent protections that help drug companies keep prices high. These two companies merged together have much greater and sustainable competitive advantages than either one by itself. One of the resources that will help to fend off threats to their product lines is their pooling of resources for their in house legal team. As new products emerge from the research and development scientists, their joint capacity to protect their drug assets and keep products in the hands of the end users will inevitably eep other drug companies from capitalizing on the opportunities to produce generics. Some of the more rare and inimitable products are the ability to produce huge financial gains for Pfizer if they pass through all the stages of FDA screening protocol. Some areas Pfizer is currently investing research and development dollars are, DNA specific drugs, new small molecule compounds, Stem Cell therapies, Amino Acid therapies. DNA specific drugs have huge potential for Pfizer because many side effects can be prevented, allergies can be detected, and a shorter time line for approval to the FDA can result from better drugs. New small molecule compounds are useful because they tend to have fewer side effects which equal fewer liabilities and risk for the producer, and can be easier to develop and manufacture. Stem cell research also opens up a great deal of opportunity for drugs that work well on the cellular and molecular level, but can even be toxic or fatal in the human body. The method of drug delivery is many times the largest hurdle in getting an effective drug to the reaction site to produce the desired effect. Finally, and quite possibly most interestingly there are over three hundred and twenty know amino acids. Our human bodies produce or utilize only twenty four of them. Many of the reaction mechanisms on the molecular level can be imitated or recreated by unnatural amino acids meaning that we may see a huge increase in effective drugs with decreased side effects by utilizing these products. In conclusion Pfizer has acquired a great addition to its company with Wyeth as part of its pro-growth business strategy. It is clear that they have used a combination of both resourced based and industry based strategy. By tapping into a broad mass market via a new product by a new company Pfizer will have a clear competitive advantage over companies like Merk and Novartis. Pfizer is definitely leveraging their human resource assets to prevent substitute products from entering the markets. I believe that by exercising these strategies Pfizer can prevent slipping into the creative destruction life stage of a company. How to cite Pfizer Company: A Presentation of Strategic Context, Essay examples